Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

Another NHS scandal: managers rake in a fortune while nurses earn less than the average wage

For a nurse, who takes home as little as £21,000 (less than the national average), this is a slap in the face. The same is true of the patient who suffers at the hands of mismanaged wards, overcrowded A&E and dangerously unhygienic conditions. The message both receive is that the "authorities" who oversee a deeply flawed system are rewarded with fat cat salaries befitting a City wide boy. This, outrageously, was true even for Trusts like Southampton where 384 execs were getting six figure salaries despite the fact that the Care Quality Commission had accused them of "placing patients at risk".

This is bad news. Rewarding the failures – something that has for too long characterised the teaching profession – sets bad practice in cement. But, too, the Government needs the goodwill of health professionals to turn around the NHS. Unfairness severely strains that goodwill: how can a nurse, asked to work ever longer shifts for ever smaller pay packets, not feel resentment towards her boss who ticks boxes and earns huge sums?

Even the most long-suffering of staff will feel subversive at the revelations of a highly-paid top rung who never get their hands dirty. If you spend your day wiping bottoms and carrying bedpans, only to be told you will not receive better wages, the least you should expect is a collegial attitude of "we're all in this together".

A nurse's suffering is not in our interest: we, the patients, will bear the brunt of her resentment. Stand by for more crises, more scandals, and more deaths.